SoIT's News, Issue 4 2008

Staff profile: Masahiro Takatsuka

Why did Masahiro (Masa) Takatsuka choose a career in academia? Simple. “Honestly, I didn’t want to wear a tie!” It has worked so far, but Masa has found there are greater joys in academia than freedom of wardrobe.

Masa joined the School of IT in 2002 after stints at Pennsylvania State University and Curtin University. Shortly after starting, Masa was appointed as the Director of ViSLAB, the School’s high-performance visualization, communication and computing research lab. Under Masa’s direction, ViSLAB leads Australia in advanced research into data visualization (both scientific and information visualization), computer graphics and vision, Human-X-Interaction or interface, and his current research focuses on advanced collaboration technology.

Whilst video-conferencing allows a certain level of collaboration, it can come with a set of problems; booking rooms and equipment, diary conflicts etc, and users often resort to face-to-face meetings for real collaboration. Masa is hoping to develop a system that is more advanced; “We want to connect people located at remote sites and have them feel as if they are working in the same room. It has to be spontaneous, where you can create really heated discussions, intense, instant collaboration, in any media.”

The project is progressing well; “We have conceptual ideas, and have implemented several prototypes. It is coming along, and there is a lot of interest in what we are doing.” National ICT Australia and CSIRO are particularly interested, and are trying out prototypes created in ViSLAB. Whilst the initial plan for this system is to improve academic research it has implications for many other areas such as business, defence, the arts, medical science, environmental science and so on. “So many large-scale projects in the world today are conducted at a national or international scale. This type of research will allow better remote collaboration and could help reduce our carbon footprint too!”

Masa says the best thing about being an academic is “being constantly surrounded by young, fresh brains! As I get older being able to tap into fresh ideas and educate these young brains is amazing. And because IT is a young field, you get to meet really famous people in your area. They are not just names on a text book.”

However IT can have its downside. “Keeping a balance between academic life and your family life is sometimes difficult. It is very easy to lose clear boundaries between work time and family time. There is a danger that intense collaboration systems will allow your work into your home.” But, Masa says, the answer lies in technology; “There are people working on technology called Awareness which can be used to stop people from disturbing you. If you have really good Awareness technology you could be at home and even if you wanted to collaborate, you wouldn’t be able to.”

Masa says he is still waiting for a big career highlight, but he has an idea of what it will be. “When one of my excellent students challenges my position and wins, and forces me into retirement, that would be a highlight! As an educator that is the best outcome you can get!”

Josephine Spongberg